Universal roof bracket



Dec. 2, 1969 c. w. TRACY UNIVERSAL ROOF BRACKET 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed April 5, 1968 r4 ii-M 7 Arrow E5 (WA/F4455 71 TRACY ll h l ooom oo ooo oooooooosooo v Dec. 2, 1969 c. w. TRACY 3,481,635

UNIVERSAL ROOF BRACKET Filed April 5, 1968 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 F/GI J /=/a 7 A ATTORNEYS INVENTOR Jfl/I/FZES HATE/16') -OOOOOOOOOOO ooooooo ooo Dec. 2, 1969 c. w. TRACY 3,481,635

UNIVERSAL ROOF BRACKET Filed April 5, 1968 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR CHARLES W TRACY BY W ' AEY United States Patent 3,481,635 UNIVERSAL ROOF BRACKET Charles W. Tracy, Tallahassee, Fla., assignor t0 International Enterprises, Inc., Tallahassee, Fla.

Continuation-impart of application Ser. No. 708,906,

Feb. 28, 1968. This application Apr. 3, 1968, Ser.

Int. Cl. F16]: 7/00, /00, 9/00 US. Cl. 287-20.94 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Apparatus applicable to the roof beams of a building under construction and having adjustable means for supporting rafters of varying sizes and at varying pitches in a manner that uncut rafters can be applied by unskilled workmen.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 708,906 filed Feb. 28, 1968, and now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention This invention relates generally to the construction of buildings and particularly to apparatus used in the construction of the roof for applying rafters between the roof beams and the upper portion of the walls of the building.

Description of the prior art Many efforts and devices have been provided in an effort to construct a building or part thereof more expeditiously; however, most of these devices have been complicated and expensive and have required a skilled craftsman to use the same. In Patent No. 3,333,875 a relatively simple structure is provided which can be applied by an unskilled work-man; however, this device is limited to a particular size rafter disposed at a predetermined pitch.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective of a building roof under construction and illustrating several applications of the invention. I

FIG. 2 is an enlarged section on the line 22 of FIG. 1 illustrating the use of the device with a four inch wide rafter.

FIG. 3 is a section similar to FIG. 2 illustrating the device in use with a six inch wide rafter.

FIG. 4 is a section similar to FIG. 2 illustrating the device in use with an eight inch wide rafter.

FIG. 5 is a top plan view of the device in use with a hip beam.

FIG. 6 is a perspective of the structure of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a top plan view of the device in use with a valley beam.

FIG. 8 is a perspective of the structure of FIG. 7.

FIG. 9 is a top plan view of the device as it is stamped.

FIG. 10 is a perspective of the device ready to be applied to one of the roof beams.

FIG. 11 is a section similar to FIG. 2 of a modified form of the invention.

FIG. 12 is a top plan view of the device of FIG. 11 as it is stamped.

FIG. 13 is a section similar to FIG. 11 of a further modified form of the invention.

FIG. 14 is a top plan view of the device of FIG. 13 as it is stamped.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT With continued reference to the drawings, a building 10 is provided having upright side walls 11 terminating in upper plates 12. A roof 13 is constructed on the walls 11 and such roof may be of simple construction with a single ridge beam extending the full length of the building and connected to the side walls by rafters or, as illustrated in FIG. 1, such roof may be of complex construction with one or more ridge beams 14 connected to the side walls by rafters 15.

If desired the roof may have hip beams 16 connected to the upper plates 12 by jack rafters 17 and having a king rafter 18 forming an extension of the ridge beam 14. Also, when two or more intersecting ridge beams are provided, a valley beam 19 normally bisects the angle between the ridge beams and is connected thereto by valley rafters 20. The hip and valley beams 16 and 19, as well as the rafters 15, 17 and 18, may be connected to and supported by the upper plates 12 in any desired manner, as by generally U-shaped brackets 21 mounted thereon.

To save time and to permit the construction of the roof by unskilled workmen, it is desirable that the ends of the various beams and rafters be uncut. In order to connect two or more beams together and to connect the rafters to the beams, a roof bracket 25 is provided which can be stamped or otherwise cut from sheet metal or other relatively strong bendable material. such bracket has a central portion 26 with upper and lower tabs 27 and 28, respectively, extending from opposite ends thereof and disposed generally in co-extensive relation therewith. One or more openings 29 may be provided in the upper tab 27 and one or more openings 30 may be provided in the lower tab 28 for a purpose which will be described later. A pair of wings 31 are integrally connected to the central portion 26 along bend lines 32 and each of such wings has a multiplicity of openings 33.

After the bracket 25 is stamped, the Wings 31 are bent outwardly substantially at a right angle to the central portion 26 so that such wings are generally parallel with each other. The bracket then can be applied to a ridge beam with the central portion 26 located substantially vertical and the upper and lower tabs 27 and 28 bent to a position overlying the upper and lower surfaces of the ridge beam and secured thereto by fasteners 34 passing through the openings 29 and 30. Thereafter, a nail or pin 35 can be inserted through a selected pair of aligned openings 33 of the wings 31 to support the upper end of the rafter while the rafter is being positioned. The openings through which the nail 35 is inserted will depend upon the dimension of the rafter being used, as well as the pitch of the roof between the ridge beam and the upper plate.

In other words, the top surface of the rafter should be in alignment with the top surface of the ridge beam. A

illustrated in FIG. 2, a four inch wide rafter is being used and the nail is inserted in openings generally midway of the wings so that the top surface of the rafter is in alignment with the top surface of the ridge beam. The rafter is merely resting on the nail and is freely pivotal thereabout. If the pitch of the roof is other than that illustrated, the nail 35 can easily be withdrawn and reinserted through a pair of opposed openings which would place the top surface of the rafter in alignment with the top surface of the ridge beam. As illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, rafters of six and eight inch widths, respectively, are provided using the same bracket as that used by the four inch wide rafter of FIG. 2. It is noted that when larger rafters are to be used, correspondingly larger ridge beams will be used and therefore the bentover portions of the upper and lower tabs 27 and 28 will vary in accordance with the width of the ridge beam.

If desired the bracket 25 can be shifted vertically on the ridge beam so that either or both of the tabs 27 and 28 can be located on the side of the ridge beam and held in place by fasteners 34 driven into the side of the ridge beam rather than the top or bottom.

With reference to FIGS. 5 and 6 the bracket 25 is illustrated as being applied to the hip beam 16 and adapted to receive jack rafters 17. In the application of the bracket to a hip beam, such bracket is placed along a plumb line after which the upper and lower tabs are bent over the top and bottom surfaces of the hip beam and secured thereto. Since the hip beam will be at an angle to the foundation of the building, the folded over portion of the upper and lower tabs will be disposed at a corresponding angle in order to lie flat against the upper and lower surfaces of the hip beam. After the bracket has been mounted on the beam, one of the wings 31 is bent to a position generally parallel with the rafters and the other wing is inclined toward the first for a short distance and then bent into a position parallel with the first, as illustrated in FIG. 5, so that the spacing between the wings will remain substantially equal to the thickness of the jack rafter. After the wings have been bent, the nail or pin 35 is placed in generally aligned openings, after which a jack rafter is placed in position with one end thereof supported by the nail 35 and the opposite end supported by a U-shaped bracket 21.

With reference to FIGS. 7 and 8 the bracket is adapted to be used on a valley beam in which the valley rafters are inclined downwardly from the ridge beam to the valley beam. In order to use the bracket on the valley beam, such bracket is inverted so that the top becomes the bottom and the bottom becomes the top, and instead of the wings 31 extending downwardly they will now extend upwardly. The bracket is attached to the valley beam along a plumb line and the upper and lower tabs are bent over the top and bottom of the beam in the same manner as described before in connection with the hip beam. The wings 31 are then bent to a position generally parallel with the rafters 15 and the nail 35 is inserted in a desired pair of aligned openings 30. In certain instances the tips of the wings will extend above the top surface of the valley rafters and when this condition occurs the tips can be either bent to a position overlying the top of the valley rafter, or can be bent outwardly and downwardly ot a position below the top of such rafter as illustrated in FIG. 8.

With reference to FIGS. 11 and 12 a bracket 40 iS provided which extends entirely around the ridge beam 14 and is provided with wings on opposite sides to accommodate opposed rafters. The bracket 40 normally is stamped from bendable sheet material and includes an elongated strip having a central portion 41 connected along bend lines 42 to side portions 43 which in turn are connected to terminal tabs 44 along bend lines 45. Since substantially all ridge beams are approximately the same thickness, the central portion 41 is of a length corresponding to the thickness of the ridge beam. Along each of the side portions 43 a pair of opposed wings 46 having a plurality of openings 47 are integrally connected along bend lines 48, as illustrated best in FIG. l2.

In this modification after the blank has been stamped, the wings 46 arebentupwardly along the bend lines 48 to a position generally parallel with each other and generally normal to the side portions 43. Thereafter the side portions 43 are bentdownwardly along the bend lines 42 so that the bracket will be in a generally U-shaped configuration with the side portions 43 being generally parallel with each other and spaced apart a distance substantially equal to the thickness of the ridge beam and having the wings 46 extending outwardly therefrom. After the bracket has been applied to the ridge beam the tabs 44 are bent inwardly to a position underlying the bottom surface of the ridge beam and in overlapping relation with each other. A nail or fastener 34 then can be driven through the overlapping tabs into the ridge beam to hold the bracket in fixed position. After the bracket is in position, a nail or pin 35 can be inserted through a selected pair of aligned openings 47 to support the upper end of the rafter while the rafter is being positioned as previously described.

With reference to FIGS. 13 and 14, a bracket 50 is provided including an elongated strip having a central portion 51 connected along bend lines 52 to side portions 53 which in turn are connected to terminal tabs 54 along bend lines 55. A pair of wings 56 each having a plurality of openings 57 are integrally connected to opposite sides of the side portions 53 along bend lines 38. This construction is similar to the construction of FIGS. 11 and 12 with the exception that the central portion 51 is disposed along the bottom surface of the ridge beam and the tabs 54 are adapted to overlap along the top surface of such beam.

In order to accommodate ridge beams of varying widths, the tabs 44 and 54 preferably are relatively long so that they will be in overlapping relation regardless of the width of the beam. Obviously when ridge beams having a relatively narrow width are used, the ends of the tabs will extend past the sides of the ridge beams. This excess material can be either cut off or bent to a position along the sides of the ridge beam.

After the rafters 15, 17 and 20 have been placed in position so that one end is supported by the nail 35 of each bracket and the other end is supported by the U- shaped bracket 21 on the upper plate .12, each rafter is moved toward the beam until one corner of the rafter engages its respective beam to help support the weight carried by the roof. Thereafter, one or more nails or other fasteners can be driven through the openings 33 of the wings 31 into the rafter to secure such rafter to the bracket 25 and at the lower end such nails can be driven through the U-shaped bracket 21 into the rafter so that the rafters are held in fixed position.

In the operation of the device the brackets 25, 40 and 50 are mounted on the ridge, hip and valley beams at the required spacing in accordance with local building codes either before or after such beams are placed in position. Thereafter the rafters 15, 17 and 20, which have square uncut ends, are placed within such brackets and U-shaped brackets 21 which have been mounted on the top plate 12 of the building and then secured in position.

It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that various changes may be made in the described embodiment of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. A universal roof bracket for connecting rafters of various sizes to the ridge beam of a building at various pitches comprising a central portion, means for mounting said central portion on the ridge beam, a pair of wings connected to opposite sides of said central portion and extending outwardly at an angle thereto and disposed substantially parallel to each other, said wings being open at the top, bottom and outer end and connected only by said central position, each of said wings having a plurality of openings, removable support means selectively received within generally aligned openings of said wings and adapted to temporarily support one end of a rafter, and fastener means adapted to extend through other openings of each wing and connect said Wings to the rafter, whereby said support means will support one end of a rafter in adjusted position until the bracket is attached to the rafter.

2. The structure of claim 1 including one or more tabs integrally connected to opposite ends of said central portion and extending outwardly therefrom.

3. The structure of claim 2 in which each of said tabs has one or more openings therethrough.

4. A roof bracket for connecting rafters of various sizes to the ridge beam of a building at various roof pitches comprising a pair of spaced first portions, a first tab integrally connecting one end of each of said first portions together, a second tab integrally connected to the opposite end of each of said first portions, said second ta'bs adapted to overlap each other adjacent to the ridge beam and be connected thereto, a pair of second portions integrally connected to opposite sides of each of said first portions and extending outwardly therefrom generally parallel with each other, said second portions being open at the top, bottom and outer end and connected only by said first portion, each of said second portions having a plurality of openings therethrough, removable support means selectively received within generally aligned openings of said second portions and adapted to temporarily support one end of a rafter, and means for securing said bracket to the rafters, whereby each of said brackets will connect at least one rafter to a ridge beam.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,036,439 8/ 1912 Brown.

1,657,243 1/ 1928 Daniels 28720.94 2,840,014 6/ 1958 Wadsworth et al.

2,990,590 7/ 1961 Graveley 28720.94 3,184,800 5/ 1965 Nelson.

3,333,875 8/1967 Tracy 28720.94

MARION PARSONS, JR, Primary Examiner 

